My potatoes have tomatoes

It’s just over a year since we took over The Great Weedbed of Calverley. It was the most neglected, overgrown allotment in the village, but we took it on nevertheless. These prized pieces of land in what everyone but us calls a posh village, don’t come up very often.

You’ve heard the term ‘dead man’s wellies?’ The previous lot-holder hadn’t died, they just ran out of steam. Either that or they were creating a wildlife garden to cultivate couch grass, creeping buttercup and abstract sculptures from clods of clay. Whatever it was, the committee wasn’t impressed and the lotholder left before they were shown the shed door, throwing down a digging challenge to the person at the top of the long waiting list. That would be me, then.

My spade and fork have been working overtime and I’m on my third set of gardening gloves, but by gum, it’s now looking something like an allotment. Granted, the grand ideas for terraced raised beds and arches full of cascading flowers hasn’t come to pass this year, but as one of the Old Boys who leans over the fence dispensing wisdom laced with wry humour points out, it’s always work in progress.

Armed only with vague memories of what my grandad did in his garden, advice from my savvy in-laws, library books and You Tube, I set about sowing and planting. Looking at my plan, my mate Bev was scandalised to see I’d written ‘stuff’ on one of the beds, though I was more explicit with other beds, which were destined to grow ‘veg stuff’ and ‘fruit stuff’. Hey, my Myers Briggs profile says I do big picture….

Now, a year later, the old weeds are gone, they have been replaced with new ones, but they aren’t as prolific or tenacious. And in their place is so much veg stuff and fruit stuff I don’t think we’ll ever need to buy food again. At least neither broad beans nor potatoes, we can feed a small country with the harvest.

The learning curve has been as steep as the path down to the lot, but for what it’s worth, here are five key learning points for me this year, there were 100 times that many, but blog etiquette requires me to keep it brief.

There are lots of creepy-crawlies, rats, mice and the odd badger sharing the lot with me. It’s not necessary to shriek every time I see one.

The al fresco toilet comes with its own fierce genus of nettles which particularly like bottoms. It’s not necessary to shriek every time I’m stung

Things grow very big, even though seedlings are very small, so they do need to be spaced some distance apart to allow room for weeding, picking, poking myself in the eye with the support canes. It’s not necessary to swear every time this happens.

Weeds grow when you’re not watching. Swearing at them will only make them grow faster.

Potatoes have fruit which look like green tomatoes, they are not edible, in fact they are poisonous. It is not necessary to swear when they drop off the plant onto your foot, they will haunt you in your dreams.